All Chapters of Wolf Moon - Queen of the Hidden Claw : Chapter 11 - Chapter 15

Morning comes before she’s ready for it.Not because the sun is loud or the compound stirs—most of the people are still asleep, bodies finally claiming rest wherever they fell—but because her body is already awake, coiled tight with unfinished motion. Alex opens her eyes to the dim gray of early light and knows immediately that staying still isn’t an option.She slips out of the borrowed bed without waking anyone else. Her muscles ache in a way that feels earned, not damaged. Wrists sore. Shoulders tight. Bruises blooming beneath skin she hasn’t examined yet. She rolls her neck once, then again, jaw setting as she exhales through her nose.Outside, the air is cool and damp. The compound smells different in the morning—less fear, more earth. Dew clings to weeds pushing through cracked concrete. Somewhere farther off, Ma is already awake; Alex can hear the faint scrape of tools and the soft, determined cadence of her voice scolding plants into obedience.The tech building sits quiet, da

By the end of the week, the world found the bodies.Not all at once. Not cleanly. But enough of them, in the same place, arranged in a way that couldn’t be dismissed as chaos or coincidence. The footage looped endlessly. Armored men stacked where corridors narrowed. Hands zip-tied behind their backs. Faces uncovered. Some bruised, some bloodied, some untouched except for the finality of stillness. And the warden—center frame in every broadcast—laid out on a steel desk like a message no one wanted to read but everyone was forced to look at. His chest was what they focused on. Carved letters, uneven but deliberate, darkened by dried blood. RD. No one knew what it meant. News panels speculated wildly:“Rebel Dissidents.”“Rogue Division.”“Retribution Directive.”“Red Dawn.”A former intelligence analyst claimed it was likely a foreign extremist signature. A senator insisted it was a domestic terror cell. Another demanded immediate retaliation, louder and redder in the face than the res

Morning breaks softly over the compound. Mist still clings low to the ground, curling around boots and concrete like it hasn’t decided whether to leave yet. The sky is pale, undecided. Alex is already awake—of course she is—but she isn’t training yet. She’s moving through the space the way she does when she’s thinking, hands clasped behind her back, eyes cataloging everything without resting on anything for too long.The gym door opens behind her. She turns, expecting Eve. Instead, it’s all of them.They don’t speak at first. They simply step inside and fan out, each woman holding something different—proof of preference, of instinct, of individuality.Mazikene carries a short staff, balanced and worn smooth.Eve has twin batons tucked under one arm, compact and practical. Others bring knives, collapsible blades, weighted wraps, improvised tools that look unassuming until you imagine them in motion.Alex notices immediately. “You didn’t have to—” she starts.Eve lifts a hand. “Let us f